The title of Betty Travitsky' s anthology, taken from a contemporary proverb, is ironic; her presentation of the history and writing of Englishwomen of the Renaissance brings out rather the "ambiguity" of their situation in this period, which allowed them a measure of development as "individuals, wives, and especially as mothers," while their general legal and economic status declined. Travitsky believes that this "ambiguous development" is "the root of the ambivalence of Western women today"; and the texts in this work do indeed portray conflictual relationships between the sexes, and between women and the society at large, that still haunt the Western heritage under various forms.
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